


A Serpent in the Gardens

by Rens_Knight



Series: In the Burning of the Light [10]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-09 17:30:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12893115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rens_Knight/pseuds/Rens_Knight
Summary: Tarssus Kallig returns to the one place away from the Sith that represents fear of the same strength as that inspired by the Dark Temple or Korriban and its Valley of the Dark Lords: the estate where he began his life as another man's property.One thing he well knows: in the world of the living, some Gardens sorely deserve the visit of a serpent.





	A Serpent in the Gardens

It was the morning of the day on which I would see my father to his eternal rest.  I walked down the desert path to the outskirts of my birth town of Soisûn on Dromund Fels with my grey cloak shielding my robes, hood draped low over my forehead, for I had no wish for the townspeople as a whole to recognize me as Darth Imperius.  Yet in that moment, I found myself dreading even more what might be said or done if the 'artifact' I carried hidden away in my satchel were to be seen.  
  
Yes--it was true.  I, Darth Imperius, Dark Councillor of the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge, trembled internally in fear of someone making the discovery that I was carrying...a toy.  More specifically, an action figure of none other than _myself_.  An entire series of them existed, I had found out, to commemorate the Dark Council and the most senior of their Sith lieutenants.  
  
On my first formal day on the job as Councillor, holograms and every other imaginable record had been taken of me.  I had even sat for an official portrait--a strange experience indeed, for the poor artist making his initial studies for the portrait he would paint later had begun absolutely terrified, yet I had found _myself_ utterly intrigued to see his craft in action.  He had entered the room wondering if he would leave it with his head still connected to his shoulders.  My relentless questions, peppered here and there with reflections on my prior trade had not been at all what the man had expected.  For rather than fixating upon the outcome, as had been the case for the other Sith commissions he had survived, I had been utterly enraptured by the process.  I knew the arts of forging metals to shape and engraving them, but not those of capturing the colors and shades of life on canvas and creating from two dimensions the image of three.  In the end, it seemed that through the exchange of our techniques and experiences, we arrived at an undiscussed yet clear approach that satisfied both artist and subject.  Insofar as I could make myself feel comfortable with being the subject of such pomp and circumstance, that is.  
  
And I certainly had not imagined that someone might take those same official images and create a _toy_ out of them, for children and for collectors.  
  
One of these figures--whether by purchase or by gift, I wasn't certain--had ended up in the possession of my father.  He had no holos or photos of the slave son the Academy had taken from him...for him, this had been his way of remembering until the day that I might come home.  Badly delayed by the wrath of Darth Thanaton, I had eventually returned, yes--but illness had taken him by then.  I had found little attachment to most of his effects, just as I held little towards most of my own.  But that toy...that figure he had used as his memento of his child...as discomfiting as it was for _me_ to see it, in so many ways, I could not bear to part with except under exactly the right sort of circumstances.  
  
After some thought, a solution had finally arrived to me.  And I found myself walking on the path towards one of the last places in the galaxy I had ever wanted to see again: my former master's estate.  And I had a plan.  
  
Even so, as I neared the invisible perimeter of the estate's property, I nearly froze.  Internally I did; externally I dared not show it, for I knew the entire place was monitored by security cameras, and I'd no doubt the images would be scrutinized for days afterwards.  I had spent much time as a Sith prowling into deadly tombs of ancient lords and traipsing all about the galaxy's most dangerous places in search of artifacts.  Yet crossing that fateful perimeter held for me all the innate dread that I had felt every time that I had entered the gargantuan Dark Temple of Dromund Kaas.  To leave this place without permission, or even to return to it by any other means than the designated entries for slaves, would have resulted in a painful shock from the slave collar I had worn around my neck from the time I'd started to grow tall.  Now, I would--and I _must_ \--traverse that boundary at my will, at the place and time that _I_ determined.  
  
_Through victory_ , I resolutely thought to myself, _my chains are broken.  The Force shall set me free._  
  
It had.  And I was across.  
  
No overseers came running for the spot of my incursion.  Perhaps the estate security guards had not recognized me.  Perhaps to them I was simply an ordinary freeborn man come here to do business.  Whatever it was...it stood as proof that my chains were indeed broken.  My mind was well aware of this: it was up to me to school my tensed body and my racing heart to obey.  This was all _my_ choice, and my choice it would remain the entire way.  
  
So I set about searching for my goal--there was someone in particular I was looking for.  I had made a few inquiries before my arrival; therefore I had some rough idea where I might find her.    
  
The part of the estate on which I found myself had been called the Gardens.  Lush, irrigated, and meticulously maintained--by the labor of slaves, of course--the Gardens were an artificial oasis in the middle of the sparser, more arid lands of Dromund Fels.  Plants imported from the areas nearer the continental coast stretched aflush with green, flowers sprung forth from the ground in defiance of the dry season that surrounded the Gardens, and a rainbow of colored fruits hung from the branches and off of vines...none of it for the consumption of commoners, _especially_ not those made to tend to them.  
  
Or who were made to crouch down over the ground, with nothing but a small weeding implement that more closely resembled a tiny pickaxe than it did anything else, to remove any errant plants that might mistakenly think they could get in on the abundance as well.  I'd heard the claims: better a slave's hands than noxious pesticides or genetically-engineered plant-destroying viruses with a propensity to run amuck.  Or than a droid, unsuited to such delicate work or the eye for aesthetics needed to avoid destroying the beauty of a garden in an effort to keep it ordered.  None of them washed, of course, to explain the use of involuntary labor; after all, paid employees could accomplish the work.  No, the _need_ for slavery to produce those goods that 'only organic hands can make to the fullest' was about the exercise of power, nothing more.  Power over people, power over the world itself...and for that, I had always despised the false lushness of the grass-carpeted Gardens compared to the natural starkness of the desert and the stubborn, scragglier, more forbidding plants like the sajjen-scrub and monsoon-rose that made their own way in the natural, arid lands.  
  
Not long after I began hearing the brush of grass over my boots before each footfall, I caught sight of her--a small, orange shape crouched down before a copse of qiriberry bushes, rooting about in the soil underneath for whatever unwanted intruders she had been tasked to remove.  The girl was a Felucian Chelonid, a meter in height at the most, though she had to be nearing eight years of age.  Her name was Edrienni, and she and her mother had been taken prisoner and sold into slavery for who knew what possible reason other than they had happened to drift across the Imperial border in the wrong spot.  And my former master had purchased them less than a month before I was taken to become Sith.  
  
I approached from the side, making only a perfunctory effort at stealth.  I did not care for an overseer to take notice of me then as anything but some unremarkable young freeborn come to admire the Gardens, unworthy of any prolonged attention.  At the same time, I had no wish to startle the young girl by appearing as if from nowhere.  
  
"Good morning," I greeted her.  
  
"S-sir?" the small Felucian stammered out once she realized I was not one of the estate's overseers, who usually would not address a slave with such cordiality.  "Can I...um...can I serve you?"  
  
I shook my head.  Then I knelt down before the girl so that I might look her in the eyes instead of towering over her at nearly twice her height, not caring in the slightest how ill-suited the gesture was to my current office.  "Edrienni," I said softly, "do you remember me?"  
  
The poor Felucian's eyes went wide.  "I'm not s'posta stop working," she whispered, her voice trembling.  "Overseer's gonna get really mad."  
  
"If the overseers come over here," I declared, my voice much sharper than before, "it would be a _very_ bad idea for them to challenge me, because they'll lose very badly."  I swept my cloak aside to let her see my lightsaber, thinking that would help.  Instead, the little girl wound up for an earsplitting scream...just as she had on the day I was taken.  " _Please, don't!_ " I hissed.  "It's all right--I'm not going to hurt you!"  Bloody hell, but that stabbed deep.  
  
" _You're a Sith Lord_ ," she whispered, still terrified.  
  
I allowed myself a small, sad smile as I hid my saber back beneath my cloak.  "I know.  My name is Imperius now, and I am a Sith Lord.  But I wasn't Sith the last time you saw me, not yet.  I was one of your master's slaves, just like you.  You had just got to Dromund Fels, and an aeroraptor came after you.  I couldn't get over there quickly enough and I just wanted the aeroraptor to go away.  I was scared for you and angry about what was happening, and all of those feelings built up and came out as lightning, and it hit the 'raptor.  Do you remember me now, Edrienni?"  
  
Recognition glinted in the child's eyes, mixed with astonishment.  "Yeah..."  She pondered that for a moment.  "Mom said they took you away from your daddy.  Mr. Serren."  
  
"Yes, you're right.  Serren was my father."  I changed the subject quickly.  "Is your mum still here at the estate?"  How I hoped my former master hadn't been so cruel as to split the family...  
  
Edrienni nodded.  "Mom's cleaning off the speeder pads.  I was picking weeds.  Overseer said it's 'cuz we're short, and short alien noses are s'posta go in the dirt."  
  
"Well.  We're going to fix _that_ ," I promised, all the while thinking what an ugly thing it was for someone to say such a thing, but especially to a child.  I hated that I could not be more overt with the young girl in setting that rubbish straight; I could not afford for any stories of this moment to be _too_ colorful.   _Too_ suggestive of the Light.  Let onlookers think this my bloodless revenge if they must know.  And that was not entirely untrue; I wasn't fool enough to deny it.  But this was far, far more than a mere act of retribution.  It was, far more, an act of restoration.  "Come with me to the speeder pads.  I have a plan to make sure that you and your mum never have to put your noses in any more dirt that you don't decide to for yourselves."  
  
"Really?"  Edrienni's eyes went wide once more...this time, I dared hope, from something other than dread.  "You could do that?"  
  
I nodded.  "Yes...really.  I _am_ Sith, after all."  
  
We made our way over to the speeder pad.  I kept my eyes out for the overseers--I could deal with them, of course, but old habits were not lost so easily.  
  
There, clad in a weathered grey outfit and covered in grime that could not entirely hide her lilac complexion, was the Felucian woman who had to be Edrienni's mother.  When she saw me arrive with her daughter in tow, the poor woman dropped the bucket full of soapy water she had been carrying.  Its contents flooded all over the pad.  "Oh, no," I heard her mumbling in horror as she immediately crouched down with her only weapon, a damp rag, and started doing what little she possibly could to sop up the mess.  "Oh, no, no, no, no...!"  
  
Leading Edrienni by one hand, I swept my hood off with the other and quickened my pace.  Seeing that she had been spotted--and who was with her--the enslaved mother stood...then just as quickly knelt before me as she deduced that I must be Sith.  "My lord--I am so terribly sorry about the mess, and for any trouble my daughter has caused you.  I beg you, have mercy, my lord--"  
  
"Please, rise!" I said as quickly as I could.  " _You_ needn't bow before me."  As she stood, the Felucian mother dared to look up towards my face.  Was there a hint of recognition there?  "Don't be afraid, Centani.  I'm Serren's son.  I am called Imperius now, but when I lived here, my name was Tarssus."  
  
"You're him..." she whispered softly.  The water that continued to crawl its way across the speeder pad was forgotten entirely now.  "I knew Serren--you really do look like him.  You're the one who saved my daughter from the aeroraptor, aren't you?  I never had the chance to thank you..."  
  
I nodded.  "That was me.  And I'm glad that I was able to be there."  
  
"How is Serren?" Centani asked, her long neck inclining forward.  "I heard you freed him.  And that's when other slaves started being freed..."  
  
My eyes darted down to the ground for a moment.  "Father recently passed away.  That's what brought me back to Dromund Fels, to see to him."  
  
"I'm so sorry," said Centani as her daughter squeezed my hand with her tiny fingers.  "I'm just...glad he got at least a little time to know what it was like to be free.  No one should have to die not knowing what freedom was like."  
  
How backwards we of the Empire had to appear in the eyes of this tormented family from the Republic, where the keeping of organic sentients as property was outlawed.  Centani and her daughter had once been free.  I would ensure that would be so again.  "I came here because I have something that belonged to my father.  I've found there is apparently quite a thriving market in the 'relics' of the Lords of the Sith.  This one is unique, and it will fetch a price that will be more than enough to buy your and Edrienni's freedom.  Kenosa and Rajjar will be there, and they will be able to help you once it's done.  But before we can get to that," I added, my voice growing sterner, "I would _also_ mention that what I have brought here will remind a certain man very strongly of the terms of the promise that he swore to me, that I will _not_ be pleased if he thinks he can satisfy me by freeing only those who were most dear to me when I was here, and the infirm."  
  
At this, Edrienni slipped my grasp and ran back to her mother's side.  To both mother and daughter I said, "I am about to summon an overseer to deliver my message alongside you; I imagine I shall have to be very firm with him.  It may be a bit unnerving to hear this--but do know that the two of you have nothing to fear."  
  
Centani swallowed--the gesture visible down the full length of her long neck, which was marred by the presence of a slave's shock collar just beneath her chin.  Then she nodded.  
  
Casting my gaze off into the distance, I caught sight of one of the brown-uniformed human figures that had struck terror into my heart as a child.  "Overseer!" I snapped in a tone I had learnt first from them, then from my fellow Sith Lords.  My voice boomed across the length of the Gardens.  "Come here at once!"  
  
How surreal to see the musclebound brute snap to at my command, and double-time it over to where I stood.  The man seemed at first to have no idea who I was.  But I remembered _him_.  I _especially_ remembered how liberal he had been whenever his finger hovered over the trigger of someone's shock collar.  Then he drew near and his eyes flared wide with recognition as I growled out my order: " _Bow before Darth Imperius of the Dark Council!_ "  
  
" _What...?_ " Centani gasped under her breath, as Edrienni buried her head in her mother's tattered tunic.  
  
"That's not _fear_ I smell, is it?"  I gave him no chance to respond.  "Don't you ever forget how that feels, Colldun!" I snapped at the cowering overseer.  I favored Centani and her daughter with a gentler glance for a second, then turned an iron gaze back upon the man who had, among others, delighted in exercising his small measure of power over my father and me, and numerous others who could not fight back.  "I see that your master has kept his slaves in the dark about what became of me.  Afraid his _property_ might start getting ideas?  Or did he think they might forget that he gave me his word?"  
  
"D-dark Lord...please...!"  I could actually _see_ Colldun trembling before me.  "He didn't--he never told me why; he just gave the order and we carried it out--please, m'lord, I have a wife, and children...!"  
  
"My father had a son," I spat in return.  "And Centani has a daughter, yet that's never made a single bit of difference with you, has it?  Not when you dragged families to the auction block, not while you shocked the parents and made the children watch!"  
  
Colldun prostrated himself before me, his face pressed into the dirt as he begged.  "I'm sorry, Dark Lord--I'm sorry!"  
  
I lowered my voice--slightly.  "If you genuinely _are_ sorry...then you will live."  I had never planned to kill Colldun.  But _he_ , of course, could never be certain of that.  "And you will help Centani and Edrienni to carry my message."  
  
"What--what message?"  
  
I took my tone down another notch.  "Rise, and I will tell you."    
  
The overseer eased himself unsteadily to his feet, dusting himself off.    
  
Gesturing at the satchel on my shoulder I said, "I have brought a collectible item of considerable value for the master of the estate, in exchange for the immediate manumission of this family--Centani, and her daughter Edrienni.  They are then to be given any and all remaining proceeds from the sale of this item."  I tapped at the satchel.  "This item is unique, because it not only commemorates my accession to Dark Councillor, but it was owned by my father.  There is a chip inside that contains an official certificate that can be verified by any dealer.  Not to mention--I _know_ about the holocams.  I know my presence has been noticed on the estate by now."  
  
At this, Colldun simply nodded.  I unshouldered the satchel with the commemorative figure in it, and delivered my final instructions.  "I want you to accompany Centani and Edrienni to deliver this straight away to your master.  I am able to track this wherever it goes--I will know if you deviate from my orders.  I will _also_ know it as soon as this goes up for auction and what price it fetches.   _And_ I also have a watch for their manumission...which, I might add, had _better_ take place without a single bruise, shock, or _any_ other harm coming to either of them at any time.  Rest assured, I will take that sort of violation _most_ seriously indeed."  
  
I shifted the satchel into both hands, preparing to hand it off.  "No," I snapped as Colldun reached out for it.  "Edrienni will carry this, and it will stay in her hands until my message is delivered to your master.  You are not to touch it.  Do you understand?"  
  
"I do.  I do, m'lord, I swear it!"  
  
I favored Colldun with a single short, sharp nod.  "Then see to it immediately."  
  
Colldun turned towards the Felucian family as I handed the satchel to Edrienni.  "You heard the Dark Lord," he barked, trying desperately to inject some sort of authority into his voice--but its trembling still betrayed him.  He knew full well that battle was lost.  "Come along, now."    
  
All that was missing was the whistle and thigh-slapping one might use to goad a recalcitrant pet massiff along.  This, at least, I had the solace of knowing would be one of the last indignities that Centani and Edrienni would ever suffer from him, or from anyone on the estate.  And if I were especially fortunate, not only would this little visit speed up the rate at which the slaves of this estate were freed, it might even convince Colldun to find another line of work, or at least exercise his current position with a bit more discretion, now that he had an enemy on the Dark Council itself to fear.  An enemy who had spared him once, on the condition that that he truly regret what he had done.  
  
The overseer took the lead with the soon-to-be-freed Felucian slaves behind him, making his best time away from the area without being seen to break into an outright run.  As for the two Felucians, both of them in turn twisted their long, flexible necks around to offer me something like a smile, or at least a look of long-suffering gratitude.  
  
As I watched their figures recede into the distance, towards the great estate house, I wished I could be there to see my former master's reaction to my payment.  And my message.  To see his rich-toned face gone ashen at the reminder of his former property now called Darth Imperius.  But to have my message borne by a child, a reminder of my presence lurking _somewhere_ out there in the shadows, ready to strike any time I might decide that he was reneging on the promise he had sworn me to transition to a slavery-free model and manumit the whole lot of his slaves...that, I knew, would be even better.  
  
I also wished I could do far more than this.  There were hints that Vowrawn and Marr saw benefits to elevating the status of the 'second-class' species of the Empire.  But would they support a push to eliminate the institution of slavery?  That, I sadly concluded every time I pondered the question, I fiercely doubted.  Therefore I was left to this: this one slaveholding estate, I would see dissolved.  My home, at least, I would not abandon.  
  
As they entered the estate house, and I turned to make my way back out of the Gardens and to the road, I felt the familiar weariness slip into my heart that always came whenever I had to immerse myself completely into the role and the persona expected of a Lord of the Sith and a Dark Councillor.  I wondered what Father would have thought of my methods.  Somehow I felt that he would ultimately understand...especially since unlike so many in the Empire, from the overseers of the estate to my fellow Lords of the Sith, I still had not forgotten how to ask the question.  
  
Nor had I forgotten that there was a time where the greatest Darkness was to refuse to wield its power.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Soundtrack:** ["Red Brick, Broken"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS4Tj_YgyhQ) by Inon Zur


End file.
